trendy

So Google has added a new feature: Google Trends. Trends charts the frequency of search words or phrases as put in in different regions/countries and then charts them and ranks them by place. The Salt Lake Tribune caught wind of this and decided to "peek into Utah's psyche":

Consider that predominantly Mormon, family-friendly Utah leads the nation in searches on such terms as LDS Church President "Gordon Hinckley," "Jesus," the "second coming," "scrapbooking," "baby names," "potty training," "quilting," "Barbie" and the sappy 1980 romantic movie "Somewhere in Time."

Utahns also apparently are hungry, and guilty about subsequent feasting. Salt Lake City ranked No. 1 in the nation searching for "Twinkies," "smores," "cookies," "chocolate" and "fry sauce" . . . and for "bulimia" and "anorexia."

[...]

But explanations fail for some other search entries for which Salt Lake City computer users take top ranking: "Sponge Bob Square Pants," "sheep," "earwigs," and "bookers." Utah's capital also has a strange interest in "gerbils," second only to Cincinnati.

Now, according to the seach I just did on Trends, the #1 worldwide city googling "gerbils" is Milton Keynes (United Kingdom) and the #1 US city is Tampa (but the data may have changed since the article went to print).

But of course the author had to explore the "salacious" side of Utah:

And there apparently are more than a few Utahns looking over their shoulders as they troll the Internet realms of the salacious and fetishism. Salt Lake City ranks No. 1 for the term "panties," loses out only to Detroit for the voyeuristic "up skirt" search, and is No. 3 - runner-up to first place Meriden, Conn., and No. 2 St. Louis - for "masturbation."

Never fear, St. Louis, for I just searched "panties" and now you are #1 (but Chicago has beat you out for masturbation).

I'm wondering about writing this article. I didn't see how one could just pick a city and see it's demographics, looks like the author had to pick out phrases to search for. Interesting. Trends is still in beta and the data only comes in bar graphs, not numbers yet.


BTW, London is leading the world in snark with Minneapolis coming in as the US' #1 snark city beating out NY and San Francisco.